Niger army kills Boko Haram leader in precision strike in Lake Chad basin

The Nigerien military announced that it successfully killed Boko Haram leader Bakura during a “surgical operation” carried out last week on an island in the Lake Chad basin, located in the Diffa region near the borders with Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon.

According to an official statement from the Niger army, Bakura was eliminated in a targeted airstrike conducted by a fighter jet in the early hours of August 15. The statement described him as a “feared leader” of the jihadist group, Caliber.Az reports, citing foreign media.

“Very early in the morning of August 15 an air force fighter aircraft launched three targeted and successive strikes on the positions Bakura used to occupy in Shilawa,” the army said.

Bakura, whose real name was Ibrahim Mahamadu, was approximately 40 years old and originally from Nigeria. He had been involved with Boko Haram for over 13 years and assumed leadership of a splinter faction following the death of former Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in May 2021 amid internal jihadist rivalries.

Unlike other factions, Bakura’s group remained loyal to Shekau’s legacy and refused to join the rival Islamist faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). He and his fighters had relocated to the islands on the Nigerien side of Lake Chad, using the region as a strategic stronghold.

Boko Haram’s insurgency, which began in 2009, aims to establish an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria and has resulted in the deaths of approximately 40,000 people and displaced over two million. The conflict has also spilled into neighboring countries, with Niger experiencing its first attacks in Bosso, along the shores of Lake Chad, in 2015.

By Vafa Guliyeva